ESPRESSO: The VLT planet hunter

Overview

ESPRESSO is the ESO/VLT ultra-stable high-resolution spectrograph designed with the main scientific aims of detecting and characterising Earth twins in the habitable zone of solar-like stars and meaasuring thepotential  variation of the constants of the Universe.  

ESPRESSO is a highly-stabilized fibre-fed échelle spectrograph that can be fed with light from either a single or up to four Unit Telescopes (UTs) simultaneously. The instrument is installed at the incoherent combined Coudé focus (ICCF) of the VLT. The light from an astronomical source is redirected from the telescopes to the detectors through the UT Coudé Trains (CT), the front end units located in the Combined Coude Lab (CCL), and the spectrograph itself. The CTs bring the light from each telescope to the CCL through 13 optical elements, including mirrors, lenses, and prisms. The four front ends (one for each UT) receive the light from the CTs and feed the spectrograph entrance fibres. Finally, the fibre link transports the light from the front ends to the vacuum vessel. The latter is thermally stabilized at the mK level and operates as a pressure of 1e-5 mbar. Once inside the spectrograph, the light is dispersed by an echelle grating and the orders split up into a red and a blue spectrum, recorded on the corresponding science detectors.

The spectrograph is fed by two fibres, one for the scientific target and the other one for simultaneous reference (either the sky or a simultaneous drift reference, the Fabry-Pérot). The light from the two fibres is recorded onto a blue (380-525nm) and a red (525-788nm) CCD mosaic. ESPRESSO can operate in three main instrument configurations: High Resolution 1-UT (HR), Ultra High-Resolution 1-UT (UHR) and Medium Resolution 4-UT (MR). The main characteristics of these modes are summarised below (for more details on the characteristics of the instrument, see the Instrument Description).

 

 HR (1-UT) UHR (1-UT)

MR (4-UT)
Wavelength range 380–788 nm  380–788 nm  380–788 nm 
Resolving power (median) 140,000 190,000 70,000
Aperture on sky 1''.0 0''.5 4x1''.0
Total efficiency
 11% 5% 11%
RV precision (requirement)
 < 10 cm/s < 5 m/s < 5 m/s
Limiting V-band magnitude* ~17 ~16 ~20
Binning 1x1, 2x1 1x1 4x2, 8x4
Spectral sampling (average) 4.5 px 2.5 px 5.5 px (binned x2)
Spatial sampling per slice 9.0 (4.5) px 5.0 px 5.5 px (binned x4)
Number of slices 2 2 1

* based on an approximate S/N per binned pixel of 10 in one hour.

Project details

Principal Investigators
  • PI: Francesco Pepe (Observatoire de Genève)
  • Co-PI: Stefano Cristiani (INAF - Trieste)
  • Co-PI: Rafael Rebolo (IAC)
  • Co-PI: Nuno Santos (CAUP, U. do Porto)
Project responsibles
  • Project Manager: Denis Mégevand (Observatoire de Genève)
  • Project Scientist: Paolo Molaro (INAF - Trieste)
Builders
  • Observatoire de Genève and University of Bern (Switzerland)
  • INAF - Trieste and Brera (Italy)
  • Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (Spain)
  • Universidade do Porto, and Lisboa (Portugal)
  • European Southern Observatory (ESO)
Relevant references
Instrument
science team
 E. Emsellem (ESO, Chair), C. Aerts (Instituut voor Sterrenkunde, Leuven, Belgium), M. Haehnelt (Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge, UK), A. Hatzes (Thringer Landessternwarte, Tautenburg, Germany), V. Hill (Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur, France), G. Tinetti (University College London, London, UK)
ESO responsibles

 

Project useful links